New Arkham City Trailer – Catwoman Announced as Playable Character

01Jun

Any news about the upcoming Arkham City video game warrants its own blog entry, in my opinion.

Earlier today, GameSpot informed us that the upcoming Arkham City video game (Rocksteady) will include the ability to play as Catwoman. A new trailer for the video game was also released. Not surprisingly, the new video features Catwoman and hints at what gamers can expect from the new perspective.

Not sure what in particular it is about the video that has me more excited than ever to play Arkham City. It might be the amazing graphics, the evidence of the impressive fighting engine, the clues into the original (at least to my knowledge) storyline, the ability to play as Catwoman, the way Catwoman looks in that tight leather suit, the trailer’s provocative soundtrack or the subtle insertion of Joker looking ever-so diabolical.

… Who am I kidding? It’s Catwoman’s leather suit that has me all excited.

What should be most exciting from a gamer’s perspective is the ability to play Arkham CIty (at least parts of it) as Catwoman, a character completely different from Batman in terms of her speed, agility, tools and skill set. Most notably, Catwoman doesn’t wear a cape, which will make gliding from tall buildings (as Batman has been known to do) a bit tricky.

In the first installment of Rocksteady’s Arkham series (Arkham Asylum, 2009), gamers fortunate enough to have a Playstation 3 were able to play through the game as The Joker, Batman’s arch-nemesis. This feature offered a nice change-of-pace from Batman’s serious, calculated and powerful persona. Instead of hiding in the shadows and efficiently taking out enemies with a single blow as one would do with Batman’s character, gamers playing as the Joker strutted around the asylum, hopped on the backs of enemies and banged away on their heads with comical inefficiency.

The other, more important, difference between the experiences of playing as Batman and the Joker was that as Batman, gamers fought “bad guys” in the name of sanity and justice. As the Joker, gamers were able to unleash insanity upon the innocent (though maybe not) guards of the asylum.

Unlike Batman, the Joker feels rather at ease capping people in the head.

For those of us who chose to play Arkham Asylum on our Xbox 360s, “Joker Mode” was unavailable. Here’s hoping that “Catwoman Mode” (or whatever it’ll be called) is available across all consoles/platforms.